Sam Ofori - Regional Policy and Regional Planning in Ghana: Making Things Happen in the Territorial Community

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REGIONAL POLICY AND REGIONAL PLANNING IN GHANA

To my dear mother, Comfort Adwoa Ofori and the fondest, most cherished memory of my late father, Reverend Emmanuel Stephen Ofori
and my dear children;
Kenneth, Andrew, Elsie and Michelle

Regional Policy and Regional Planning in Ghana

Making things happen in the territorial community

Sam C. Ofori
BA (Hons) (Ghana) MSc (UST-Kumasi) PhD MSc (Strathclyde)
CertEd DMS MBA (UCE-Birmingham)
Member; Ghana Institute of Planners (MGIP)
Formerly Lecturer
School of Planning
Faculty of the Built Environment
University of Central England
Birmingham, England, UK

First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright S.C. Ofori 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2001097976

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-74145-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-18284-1 (ebk)

Contents

Guide

Formal regional planning has existed in post-colonial Ghana for over three decades. A number of programmes and projects have been implemented in the country in the past and more recent times to improve the well-being of the people in both urban and rural areas. Apart from this, effort has also been made to introduce a planning system and legislative provisions in support of practice and to facilitate the process of socio-economic and physical-environmental development in the localities and regions of the country.

However, a dialectic of these processes is that the perceived levels of disparities and disadvantage within and between communities as well as groups of people in the regions become even more pronounced over time. Indeed, the experiences of socio-economic and spatial development processes in many Third World countries, including Ghana, show that most rounds of investment and initiative hardly achieve the policy and programme objectives. In particular, the socio-economic well-being of the target populations hardly experiences real material change. This trend has been exacerbated in the last fifteen years with the more active pursuance of the structural adjustment policies and economic recovery programmes. The already marginalized, deprived and disadvantaged groups, in particular those in the territorial communities, have suffered greater relative poverty.

A principal aim in this book is to assess the impacts of sector-based and one-off projects on levels and dimensions of socio-economic and spatial disparities between the district localities within the Central Region. A more specific focus related to this is to evaluate the impact of a major and more concrete regional programme on the well-being of communities and groups in a particular subregion within the Central Region. This whole engagement is set within an assessment of the statutory planning frameworks, contexts and practices. While regional planning is presented as much as possible as a process, it is not set out as being mechanistically unidirectional. The Central Region is used as an exemplar of the region in Ghana.

Methodologically, this scenario poses a greater challenge to the planning process to prove itself dynamic, continuous and legitimate. But reduction or even elimination of the disparities and deprivation depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the intervention and mediation actions. This, of course, can only be ascertained by a conscious and rational evaluation of the impact of programmes and projects implemented within the statutory regional planning context. It has obvious futuristic benefits for learning from the regional planning actions and processes and enriching policy refinement.

This book is divided into nine chapters. The general introduction to the study and its specific objectives are presented in . Aspects covered here are the concepts of region, regional planning and the general nature of the 'region' in Ghana. The evolution of the national space-economy is also briefly traced out. The current planning system is presented. Then the backgrounds of the Central Region and more focused sub-region, Lower Denkyira-Twifo-Hemang District, are also set out. The assets and opportunities available to regional development and the challenges facing these in the Region are highlighted.

The methodological and epistemological framework of the book are explained in covers the theoretical contexts. The aim is to emphasize the relevance and value of these in guiding policy and strategy in regional planning than being used essentially for explanatory purposes. Thus the important considerations and issues involved in planning the kind of region in context are emphasized. Two underlying hypotheses are also stated.

In is to assess the state and practices of regional planning policy formulation, plan-making and strategies. Another objective is to set out the background to a major development programme implemented in the Central Region. An attempt is made to tease out the possible influences of globalization processes and corporate capital on the regional initiatives.

The first level of regional policy and development assessment is done in . The focus is on its various aspects, including the economic, social, spatial, environmental and political.

. The assumptions underlying the hypotheses and policy implications of these are pointed out. Finally, a number of policies for future regional planning in Ghana is proposed and a general prognosis made of the strategic implementation of these.

It is emphasized the greater need to ensure that regional planning initiatives are effective and achieve real positive results. A general observation made is that the whole process of regional planning and socio-economic development has been a case of play-it-over-again and dja-vu. The development process tends to be made an event of in this situation and poverty suffers greater burdens. Real development hardly takes place, previous initiatives having been non-events. Moreover, policy formulation, practices of implementation, monitoring and programme evaluation have been characterized by ineffectiveness.

This practice and attitude of play-it-over-again, we-have-seen-it-before and the-same-thing-over-again are deterministic, mimetic and stifle creativity as well as limit responsiveness. These attitudes and practices are also obstacles to the effective management of regional change. The territorial communities have held this humdrum recurrence suspect and consider it an orchestration by the public domain and coalitions of elitists. Planning practices and development processes become characterized by slander and tale-telling.

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